David Brancaccio

speaker

2,652 appearances 78 recordings 2 series first heard Dec 2025 last heard 5 May

David Brancaccio’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 78 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 37.

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Marketplace All-in-One · Even an econ degree does not insulate you from AI · 4 Feb 2026 podcast

Legal Zoom stock fell nearly 20%.

Salesforce was down about 7%.

Expedia, the travel service, down 15%.

The dread felt by human accountants, lawyers, and travel agents now extends to the software firms that had digitized some of their work.

This extends to entire professions.

Is it even worth getting a degree now in economics, long considered a solid route to employability?

Economics departments at colleges and universities are worried and working to adapt.

We're joined now by Wendy Carlin, a professor of economics at University College London and director of the Core Econ open source curriculum project.

Professor, welcome.

Thank you.

It's great to be with you.

Studying economics can pay off.

We know this.

But first, you've got to get a job when you get out of school.

How deep, Professor, how deep is your concern that artificial intelligence might be a cheaper alternative to hiring your econ majors?

Now, this is more than just an abstract concern about the future.

I think you were privy to information out of Hong Kong where employers were needing less fresh econ majors.

I mean if you have to change your approach to economics education to adapt to the presence of AI out in the real world, what are some ways to think about that?

And I think it even goes without saying that artificial intelligence can be a great tool.

So if you could come up with a crop of econ majors who are super pros at using AI to solve even more advanced problems, maybe they would stand a shot of finding work.

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